


Masquerade

by shootingstarcipher



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Demon Bill Cipher, Human Bill Cipher, M/M, Masturbation, Romance, Smut, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:23:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his dreams, Dipper is a different person entirely - courageous, admired, a celebrated warrior - and yet he’s still second best to a person who, when they meet in the real world, is almost completely unrecognisable.<br/>The golden-haired, lanky yet respectable boy with a missing eye and commanding - albeit graceful - aura he knowsfrom his dreams can’t possibly be the same monster that was trying - and succeeding - to rip his family apart.<br/>Except that their voices are the same.<br/>That, and the fact that the monster haunting him in the real world remembers him from encounters they’ve never really had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Made of Gold

In reality, Dipper Pines felt weak. His mind was sharp but that was all he had going for him. If he ever ended up in a fight he couldn’t talk his way out of, it wouldn’t take much for him to wind up dead and he was reminded of that fact every day in the form of cruel taunts and merciless derisions, usually made by his twin sister or their great uncle Stan. His bones were brittle, his movements slowed and he was nowhere near as strong as most other boys his age, although his intellect remained unrivalled - not that anyone he knew seemed to value that as much as physical strength. In his dreams, however, it was a different story entirely.

Every night when he went to sleep, he became someone else - someone stronger, someone faster, someone who was admired by everyone. His intelligence remained intact and yet his persona… In his dreams, he shed his old identity as Dipper Pines - a mentally sharp yet physically feeble twelve year old boy with a minimised social circle - and became someone known only as Angel - a strong, still intellectually gifted warrior admired by millions. Angel was a born leader. Angel was everything he’d never be. And yet Angel was still under someone else’s control - the true mastermind behind his dreams, Cipher.

He was the real reason he rushed to bed every night, desperate to get back to their own world - the world they had built together, the world they ruled over together. Everything he could see from that triangular window in the enormous black pyramid they called their castle belonged to them and only them. It was nearly all golden. That had been Cipher’s decision; to be perfectly honest, almost every decision they made was his. Dipper - or Angel, as he was known in their world - didn’t mind. All he really wanted was to please him, because he’s the only one who ever really accepted him.

He was standing by the window now, gazing out at everything they owned. Flecks of gold flickered in the otherwise vibrantly coloured sky on a mesh of hallucinogenic hues. Below, he could see the golden steps leading up to the entrance to the pyramid and at the bottom of those steps stood their guards, both of whom were wolves created by Cipher for the sole purpose of protecting their home from any unwanted intruders, crouching low to the grassy ground with their teeth bared. He gazed down on them with pride. It felt new to him every night, the feeling of power and admiration. But it shouldn’t have. This had been going on for years.

Cipher was behind him, lying down on their bed, not that either of them ever slept. He didn’t know why they had a bed there in the first place, but Dipper didn’t like to ask questions - mainly because Cipher didn’t like to answer them. Turning away from the window, he crossed the room and curled up next to him, enjoying the feeling of the warmth radiating from the blond boy beside him.

He was tall and slender, not much older than Dipper, and always dressed in the strangest, though also the most elegant clothes Dipper had ever seen: a crisp white shirt, velvety black trousers, a long golden overcoat and finally, a bow tie and top hat, both of which appeared to be perpetually crooked - just like his grin. His left eye was pure gold; an eyepatch covered the space where his right eye should have been. Dipper never asked about that either, although the curiosity was slowly killing him.

The other curious thing about Cipher was his eccentric, manic personality. His mood could shift between wildly different emotions in a split second, often flitting dramatically between fury and ecstasy for no apparent reason and with no warning at all. No-one had ever seen him sad even when sad things happened. He was obsessed with gold and in particular, golden triangles. Quite simply put, he was insane. But, Dipper had convinced himself, in a good way.

Despite his temper, he never acted in a way which made Dipper fearful of him, even if he did sometimes get angry at their subjects. It was Dipper’s calm - albeit analytical - temperament, which balanced out the blond’s fiery temper, that led to him being so highly regarded by the citizens of their world. Cipher was the one who gave the orders and he - known to their subjects as Angel - was the one who carried them out in the best way possible. He was the one who treated their subjects as equals and spoke to them with respect whilst Cipher was the one who punished them when it was deemed necessary. Together, they made an unstoppable team.

“I have something I need you to do,” the blond muttered as they lay there side by side on the bed, his hot breath engulfing the shell of Dipper’s ear. Rolling over to face him, Dipper rested his head lightly on the elder’s chest and smiled into the thin white material of his shirt. “One of our eyebats is missing.”

Freezing, Dipper lifted up his head and turned to look at him, a look of concern washing over his face. The eyebats weren’t really their subjects, but rather an army of security guards designed not to attack but to constantly be on the lookout for any signs of suspicious activity, dangerous or otherwise. It was up to the wolves to attack anyone who posed a threat or tried to get into the castle without the authority or permission to do so, whilst the eyebats held the responsibility of - for lack of a better phrase - keeping an eye on things.

“It’s a baby,” Cipher went on, reaching up with one hand to run his fingers through the brunet’s hair. “And it could be injured. I need you to locate it and bring it back here. I’ll heal it if I need to and then set it free again with the others.” He paused for a moment and glanced down at him, taking Dipper’s hand in his own. “You’ll do it for me, won’t you? I’ll make it worth your while,” he added with a smirk, not that Dipper needed any more incentive to do it. 

Besides, it was important and he was the only one - apart from the blond - who could communicate with the eyebats properly. They didn’t speak, but sent telepathic signals all of which were in morse code. Gazing up at him, Dipper nodded with a rueful smile and the two of them soon manifested at the front of the pyramid, the golden staircase behind them as they stood in between the two guards.

Another wolf, known as the Captain due to having been appointed captain of the Secret Police, approached them, his stride oozing confidence and authority despite him being of lower rank than the two rulers that stood before him. He bowed before them once he reached them. Sending one final appreciative glance in Dipper’s direction - and after explaining that the wolf would be helping him on his mission to locate the missing eyebat - the blond sent them on their way, watching as they walked away from him until they disappeared from view, at which point he turned back and returned to his chamber inside the castle.

The Captain was larger, faster and stronger that any of the other wolves in their world, all of whom had been designed and created by Cipher with careful precision who paid the utmost attention to the details of their individual designs. No two creatures were exactly alike and each one had been designed for a specific purpose; the Captain had been assigned the job of captain of the Secret Police even before being created. His fur was the darkest of blacks and his eyes a bright yellow, illuminating his unforgiving gaze. His mouth was curved into an almost constant snarl, dangerously jagged teeth practically always on show. 

They walked side by side in silence, the Captain leading the brunet across the grassy plains towards the eerie, alarmingly threatening-looking forest ahead of them. It wasn’t a normal world and Dipper had accepted that fact years ago. It didn’t matter anyway; none of it was real, no matter how real it felt. As they reached the forest, the grass beneath their feet - or paws, as it was in the Captain’s case - turned to stone and they started off following the path that had been laid for them with golden bricks but the wolf soon led him astray until they eventually came to a very distinctive tree with orange and silver leaves and reddish bark, which stood beside a rocky cave with sharp bits of rock sticking out of the entrance, making it look as though it were the jaws of a ferocious animal.

“This is where the missing creature in question was last seen,” the Captain grunted, his bared teeth making everything he said sound like a threatening growl.

For the next few minutes, the two of them stood there silently, each of them carefully examining their surroundings, scanning the scene for any sign that the eyebat had been there, or anything that could point them in the direction of the creature’s current location. There was nothing. Nothing until Dipper caught sight of a single paw print in a patch of mud by the entrance of the cave, at which point his companion suggested he used one of the many - borderline infinite - powers he had in the dreamscape and that he transformed into something more useful.

All he had to do was imagine himself in the body of a wolf - capable of matching the speed, stamina and sheer strength of the Captain but with light blue fur instead of black and with a golden collar around his neck, the emblem hanging from it signifying his allegiance to the true ruler of their world - and suddenly his imagination came to life, the two wolves now diving into the darkness-shrouded cave the lone paw print led them to believe the eyebat had been taken into.

They’d both been able to pick up the scent of the owner of the paw print already so navigating their way through the caves wasn’t a problem. The problem arose when the scent of the other being grew stronger and they heard malicious, warning growls coming from up ahead. Their mistake came from assuming that only one being was with the missing eyebat. Tens of other wolves stayed hidden in the shadows the cave provided, warning them off with their snarls. But in this world, Dipper was much more courageous than he could ever be in reality - so courageous that the ominous sound of their snarls was not enough to persuade him to back down.

They pushed on, trudging through the cave - more cautiously than they had done previously - until the Captain stood nose-to-nose with the largest member of the pack, a female wolf with white fur and a gaze almost as cold and unfeeling as the Captain’s. Dipper stood there proudly, though a few steps behind his companion, and his collar glimmered in a spark of silver light his imagination brought to life. At that point, most of the other wolves backed off and retreated, fleeing the cave, their absence revealing a small golden chest hiding behind the only wolf left - the one still stood in an authoritative manner, aggressively baring her teeth at the two of them.

“A member of the Order,” the white wolf commented, her gaze flickering towards Dipper’s collar for no longer than a second. “Angel, I presume. Not as powerful as the other one, but still.” He didn’t know whether to take it as a compliment or not but he did know that it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t there to take compliments or be insulted; his only concern was the safety of the eyebat he’d gone there to protect.

He barely noticed when the two other wolves started fighting. It was a deep, thunderous growl from the Captain that drew his attention and led him to notice the two of them caught in a fierce brawl. Before then, he’d been too caught up in his thoughts… or rather, the thoughts that were forcing their way into his mind. They weren’t his own thoughts at all, but those of the being he was there to safely return to the castle. As it turned out, Cipher had been right. The young, missing eyebat was injured. It told him that with a telepathic screech and at that moment he forgot all about the other two wolves engaging in battle and focused only on getting to chest behind them - in which the eyebat told him he was locked.

Getting him out was a simple task. Once he’d managed to slip passed the other wolves unnoticed (at least by the white wolf) he returned to his usual, human form and pulled the lid of the chest up, lifting it off the main body of the chest and setting the young eyebat free. And it certainly was young. The youngest one he’d ever seen. It was tiny - he hadn’t even known they could be so small - and its wings looked so feeble he was surprised they could get him anywhere. Naturally, there was a reason for that. His small black wings had been cut deliberately by the wolves to stop him from escaping.

Once he’d opened the chest, Dipper turned back to the other two wolves to find them still fighting. Fortunately, it looked like the Captain was winning. He’d expected nothing less. The dark-haired wolf had the other pinned to the ground, still biting at her violently even though Dipper considered unnecessary. The danger had passed. There was no need to carry on attacking. The eyebat was safe now - he was still cowering inside the golden chest, which Dipper was holding in his arms - and the female wolf was starting to be subdued. Yelling at him to stop, Dipper finally managed to get the Captain’s attention and retreated obediently, returning to his side.

“I don’t know what you want with him,” Dipper snapped at the other wolf, momentarily forgetting that his calm composure was what made him stand out from the other ruler. “But he belongs to the Order, not you. You are a disgrace to us all.” Striding passed her, he and the Captain gave her one last glance before heading back out the cave with their heads held high with pride - the Captain because of the satisfaction of winning yet another battle and Dipper because of the honour of successfully completing yet another task on Cipher’s orders.

Licking her wounds, she stood up and faced him with sorrowful eyes, the sound of her trembling voice making Dipper stop in his tracks. “You don’t know what you’re doing. This is beyond you!” He dismissed her words of warning immediately, though they echoed in his mind as he made his way back to the castle.

He returned to the castle on his own, the Captain having left a short while before he reached it to reconvene with the rest of the Secret Police. The guards bowed to him obediently as he approached and returned to their original positions as he strode up the stairs made of gold to the entrance of the pyramid, the chest containing the eyebat in his arms.

Cipher was there to greet him at the doorway and took the chest from him as he walked in, leading him up to their chamber. Upon reaching their chamber, he set the chest down on the writing desk and peered into it, the both of them closely examining the eyebat’s injuries. “This’ll take ages to heal. I saw what happened,” the blond explained, turning away from the creature contained within the chest. Then he clicked his fingers and the blood that had once caked the eyebat’s wings vanished instantly, its wounds magically healed. But it still wasn’t healthy. “His injuries are healed, but he’ll be too weak to fly for a while. He’d better stay here.”

Nodding in understanding, Dipper crossed the room and curled up on the bed, tired after all the travelling he’d done. He was aware of the irony of him being tired in a dream but pushed the thoughts out of his mind, choosing instead to believe that he was simply in another reality. So then it didn’t confuse him when the blond sat beside him on the bed and grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him closer. It didn’t confuse him when he realised he didn’t mind, when he realised that all he really wanted was to feel the blond’s lips moving against his, even though he’d never thought anything like that about anyone who wasn’t of the opposite gender before, asleep or awake.

And now, while Dipper’s head was swimming with the thoughts of the pleasure the blond could bring him, Cipher decided to make his move.

He whispered something in his ear, his voice gentle and his breath warm and welcoming, though Dipper didn’t hear what, his thoughts more invested in the feeling of his heart pulsating rapidly as if it was trying to break free from his chest. Based on the speed it was going, he was surprised it hadn’t already burst. “You did well today, Angel,” the blond was saying, moving suddenly to pin him down with his back flat against the satin-covered mattress. “And I did say I’d make it worth your while…”

If he said anything after that, Dipper didn’t hear him. A smirk appeared on the blond’s face and their gazes met for a moment, but his lips latched onto the brunet’s neck and Dipper’s eyes half-closed themselves automatically. The voice of reason told him he’d wake up soon but he drowned it out with sound of his soft, whining moans which became uncontrollable once Cipher started nibbling roughly at his jawline. His hands travelled to the blond’s neck and snaked themselves around him, pulling him closer and then suddenly there was a tongue prying his lips apart and forcing its way into his mouth, tasting him.

He should have listened. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. He should have known that none of it was real, but sometimes dreams were so much better than reality.

But what was real was the discomfort he felt when he woke up. His hair was slick with sweat and there was an unpleasant tightness in the lower half of his body that he was sure would only ever go away if he managed to get back to the world he ruled over in his dreams. He noticed he was clutching the blanket tightly and instantly let go, the warmth of the blanket causing even more discomfort for his already too hot body. Mabel was awake, sat up in bed and staring at him, even though it was still dark outside.

He lay back down and tried to get back to sleep, hoping that if he succeeded he’d achieve the relief he needed. Unfortunately, when he did eventually drift off to sleep again, he found himself alone in the pyramid-shaped castle, plagued by the telepathic whimpers of the eyebat that lay in the chest made of gold across the room from him.


	2. Unannounced

The discomfort was gone when he woke up again but his embarrassment was not. Who knew whether the moans he’d been unable to control in the dreamscape had also escaped his lips in the real world? Mabel probably did. She’d been awake the first time he’d woken up and she was sat up in bed now too, sitting cross-legged on top of the blanket and facing him. She was staring at him with wide eyes, unusually and almost eerily quiet. He shuffled closer to the wall, rolled over to face her and happened to catch sight of the glimmer of amusement in her eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked hesitantly, unsure of whether or not he wanted to know the answer. Mabel burst into laughter immediately and he scowled at her irritably, unable to decide if he should be laughing too until he knew the reason why she was.

It took her a while to stop and with every minute that passed he grew increasingly frustrated and even more nervous, knowing that she may have witnessed something more embarrassing than he could have predicted. “Good dream?” she giggled, still struggling to contain her laughter. Dipper groaned and rolled away, burying his face in his hands. He didn’t know how much she knew but still, he was mortified. “I thought so. You weren’t making any sense. So who was it?” she pressed on, apparently oblivious to his embarrassment. Or maybe she just didn’t care. “Wendy?”

He shook his head but stayed silent. He didn’t want to talk about it and he told her that, but in an almost incoherent mutter which was muffled by his hands. Explaining his dreams would be too difficult. It wasn’t just that he felt attracted to the recurring blond character in his dreams in a physical sense, but that after meeting with him every night for the last couple of years, he felt they had actually developed a relationship - not necessarily a romantic one, but a close relationship all the same. A relationship he was aware was some sort of artificial replica of an ideal one with someone like Wendy that he could only hold onto in the dreamscape and had no existence anywhere else.

Despite his evident distress, Mabel continued pressing him for details. “Come on, Dipper, you have to tell me,” she groaned in despair. “It’s the first time, isn’t it?” He sat up and looked at her, nodding, curious as to where she was going with this. “Then you have to tell me! Well, I’d tell you.” 

Dipper was horrified. “I wouldn’t want to know!” he exclaimed, alarm flickering in his eyes as he pushed himself further away from her to sit with his back pressed up against the wall beside his bed. She looked at him like she couldn’t believe what he was saying, but by the time she opened her mouth to say something he was already walking across the room and heading towards the stairs.

She threw herself out of bed and chased after him, catching up by the time he reached the kitchen and they sat down at the table together, grabbing a bowl of cereal each on their way. They sat opposite each other, though Dipper hung his head and avoided making any eye contact with her at all. He didn’t eat much either, spending most of the time they were sat there playing with his food and hardly any of it actually eating.

She opened her mouth to speak again but Dipper cut her off with a heavy sigh. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” he told her firmly but with a hint of anguish in his voice. “It was… It wasn’t about a real person, okay?” Using the word “person” seemed like a good idea at the time. While he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was attracted to a guy, he was concerned about the complications it might cause. He didn’t know that Mabel would accept it or even if she’d understand; he didn’t even know that he himself accepted it yet, and he certainly didn’t understand.

The trouble was, telling her his dream hadn’t been about a real person put an idea in her mind that he couldn’t get out of. And that’s how he wound up on his way to a blind date he’d never agreed to.

It probably made sense in her mind - then again, a lot of her logic was nonsense to him and vice versa. He didn’t have a girlfriend (or a boyfriend, though he didn’t mention that part to her) but he must have wanted one (according to his dream) and she knew the perfect one for him. She prided herself on her matchmaking abilities and refused to believe she didn’t know who her brother’s perfect match was, whether he wanted her to arrange a date with her or not.

But it was as they were making their way through the woods surrounding the Mystery Shack, heading towards the waterfall after which the quaint little town was named, that everything went wrong. The vibrant greens of the forest faded into greys, blacks and whites and time seemed to slow to stop. A sudden bout of shrill laughter attracted their attention and they turned their heads, standing staring ahead of them with wide eyes to find a nemesis of theirs - Gideon Gleeful, a boy with a scary obsession with Mabel and possibly even scarier hair - kneeling on the ground in the centre of a ring of lit candles, as if he was worshipping something.

Dipper saw it first and Mabel wasn’t far behind. There, hovering in the now dark grey sky, was a beam of light in a triangular shape. The creature appeared unannounced in the sky, demanding attention. The light vanished after a moment, leaving in its wake a black triangle with a single white eye in its centre as well as a white pattern below its eye. Then the triangle moved and, as it floated closer to Gideon (though still remaining above the ground), the black faded into gold and the white pattern on the lower half of its front surface turned to black. 

It was still laughing. A top hat lingered above its point and it wore a black bow tie just below its eye. Arms and legs protruded from its sides, giving it a more humanoid appearance. Noticing the twins’ presence, it locked gazes with Dipper, who glowered back and frowned. There weren’t many beings in the universe that wore top hats and bow ties in this day and age, and that only had one eye and were obsessed with the colour gold. In fact, Dipper could only think of one.

Gideon had risen to his feet by now and was accusing the creature floating above him of being a demon but was being completely ignored by everyone involved. Mabel was staring in horror at the triangular creature with her mouth agape and Dipper was gazing it with confusion reflected in his eyes as he struggled to comprehend why he reminded him so much of the boy he knew from his dreams. After staring for a little while, Mabel grabbed her brother by the arm and attempted to pull him away, reminding him that they had somewhere they needed to be. “She’s waiting for you,” she hissed, anxious to get away from the golden monster that had not yet taken its eye off her brother.

“Keep away!” Gideon suddenly yelled at them, his voice warning. “That demon’s mine!”

Seeing the look of confusion on Dipper’s face, the supposed demon confirmed the allegation for him. “He’s right, kid. I am a demon.” After a moment’s pause, he stuck out his small black hand but dropped it to his side again before he had the chance to shake it. “The name’s Bill,” he introduced himself, still acting as if Gideon wasn’t even there in spite of the fact that he was the one who had summoned him to their world. “And I don’t suppose you’ve forgotten about last night already, so stop acting like we’ve never met.”

Mabel turned her head to look at her brother accusingly but he failed to notice the concern on her face, his gaze fixated on the demon before him. “Last night?” she questioned, her shaky voice falling silent by the time it reached her twin brother’s ears.

It took Dipper a moment to understand what was happening, but the evidence was too overwhelming to ignore. He had to push logic aside for once - it was telling him that a human boy who possessed magic in his dreams could not enter the real world in the form as a humanoid triangle - but perhaps logic was wrong this time. After all, a lot of what he and Mabel had encountered in Gravity Falls should have been disproven by the logic he thought he possessed long ago, so maybe it was purely something which humans had not yet evolved to comprehend.

Tilting his head onto one side, he gazed curiously at the demon until eventually he felt able to force the word out of his throat. “Cipher?”


End file.
